A freshly done Cyclone longbow with bi-carbon inlaid under clear glass limbs. This is something we do not normally do but we made an exception at the request of a close friend of ours.

looks sharp!  I'm going to have to shoot one of your recurves one day.....

Oh no...... You may have to start lol. I have never owned a carbon limb bow until about a week or so ago. All I can say is wow. Huge difference.  Lighter draw weight and super fast!!

Very nice indeed!! But May I ask why the glass over carbon?  Doesn't the glass defeat the purpose of the carbon? I am just curious here, do not to start a debate about anything.
Thanks, Tom M

I recognize that carbon...LOL

This a matrix carbon with 45/45 bias weave mixed with uni-carbon. I had an aerospace carbon outfit lay this up for me and i sent some to Mike.

Hey Tom,
In terms of speed... Yes, the fiberglass over the carbon does take a bit of the snap out of it. But with this type of carbon it adds a lot of torsional stability making the limbs very resistant to twist, and increases the tracking stability throughout the draw cycle.

How would limbs like these sound compared to no glass? What is the core material?  Kirk, do you sell that carbon?

We build a bamboo limb. Bamboo is a great performing and forgiving limb in our longbow design. I have played with carbon in this limb design before. What people don't understand is you just cant add .20 or .30 carbon to a limb stack, it will add over weight to the limb goal. So you grind .20 or .30 less bamboo to add carbon and pay more for it. And get no added performance in our longbow design. We use carbon on request in our recurves because the limb design is better with it because you have less lams in your limb stack. I don't like to get overly scientific but a great performing limb design is just that. The person we built this limb for wanted to have the look. He ordered the carbon from Kirk for me to use. We did test it and it didn't do anything to the performance. He owns 3 other Cyclone longbows we built him and they all are with 100% bamboo. We use .20 carbon under glass in our recurves as I mentioned earlier and you can see a advantage there. But if you want 200 feet plus in light weight bows buy a compound. None of us professional bowyers hold the secret to the super sonic bow. We all build the best bow we can. What I mean by that is we look at the best performance we can get with out throwing forgiveness and accuracy to the wayside. I and many customers and friend of ours are IBO trad event shooters. I have built some super sonic bows that look awesome through a chrono but can't group arrows with consistency. That's not a bow I want in a event or hunting. Beware, you can spend a lot of money chasing 2,3 or even 5 fps. Some times its as easy as changing the silencers on the bow you have. We did build our customer a beautiful longbow. And gave him the limb look he wanted.

Thanks for info everyone. I have shot bows with carbon over maple and bamboo as cores. Unfortunately not enough to give a real eval. Hence my question. I do understand there are gives and takes with bows and their  different designs.
Can not really call myself a speed freak, but I am interested in a well balanced blend in speed and stability.
Agian thank you for informative answers,
Tom M

Yup.... Mike nailed it. A good limb design is a good limb design and some of them benefit in performance with the use of carbon, and some do not..... Uni-carbon is what really adds the snap to a bow... but... Uni-carbon has less torsional strength than fiberglass does.... So you have a trade off...

I'm right there along with the same thought that Mike pointed out about building hot rods with carbon backing. if your design isn't vertically and torsionally stable, and i mean rock solid.... you are going to have a less forgiving bow due to the instability..... With a less than perfect release, it's going to effect your accuracy a lot more.

The only way carbon is going to significantly increase your performance is by putting it directly on the back of the limbs, and use a lighter weight core material than bamboo. But the down side of this is that the carbon is more fragile than glass.....

To me personally... i wouldn't hunt with carbon backed limbs. i'm too rough on my bows. If you like the looks of it. put glass over it like this one.....

Hey Mike, She came out pretty good looking.  

So if a customer wanted you could slide a wood veneer between the glass and carbon on belly and back of limbs? How thick is your clear glass?

Overbo, Yes I have done that for years in our recurves. We use .20 unidirectional carbon. There is really not any look to it. It is just black without the pattern.
But as Kirk said when we build a black limb bow we like to put it under the back glass. Carbon works best on the back than belly. The glass we use on our longbows is .40 on the recurves is .30 in low weight and short draws that would dictate .30 on the longbows too. Thanks Kirk for your comment on the look of the bow. I personally have never really liked that look of carbon  on a trad bow. But I have to say this one is kinda growing on me. No guys, I don't want to build another one.lol

You are a good man Mike... I couldn't help chuckle about you ending up building these limbs instead of your friend. It sounded like he has a bit of knowledge on bow building, but has a ways to go yet.... that was a cool thing to do.

btw.... Elmont fixed me up with that bumble bee wood i was looking for. Thanks for the tip on that.

Kirk

kirk I never intended to make them myself.I just was looking for some carbon  only.that is why I asked mike if he would make them for me.

Leon was a sander for us for a while. He knows his way around the shop. I was glad I could do this for him. And YES, I did make him sand them. He is a great friend of all of us here at Legends Bows. Im just worried about his next request.    :confused:

QuoteYES, I did make him sand them  

       

Great stuff!

Golden bambo under clear glass is soooo pretty, why would you want anything else?